The invention relates to an information management system which organizes information by using an electronic spreadsheet.
Commonly available spreadsheet programs, such as 1-2-3 by Lotus Development Corporation, provide users with an electronic worksheet for organizing and manipulating data. Such a worksheet can, for example, be configured so that when displayed on a computer screen it looks and functions like a financial spreadsheet. Usually, each worksheet is associated with its own file, and only one file, and thus, only one worksheet can be present in the workspace at any one time.
The worksheet typically consists of a rectangular grid of cells that provides a structure for entering and calculating data and for organizing and storing information. Each cell can store three types of data, namely, labels, values and formulas. Labels are text, such as "Sales" or "Inventory", which can be used to identify and visually organize the values that are entered in a worksheet. Values are numbers. Formulas are expressions that combine labels, values and cell references to yield a label or value as a result.
In some previously available programs, formulas could include any combination of mathematical operations from simple arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and exponentiation, etc., to advanced financial and statistical analysis. In such programs, when the user enters a formula into a cell, the program typically calculates the formulas result and displays that result for the cell. In addition, a formula can refer to a range of cells that contains data that the formula will process. For example, in 1-2-3 one such function is referred to as the "at sum" function and has the following form: @SUM(&lt;&lt;range&gt;&gt;), where &lt;&lt;range&gt;&gt; specifies a range of cells. The @SUM function sums the values of the cells in the specified range to produce a result.
Many other functions, similar to the @SUM function, exist in previously available spreadsheet programs for processing data within a range of cells to produce a result. Such functions may be used in financial worksheets, for example, to compute such frequently needed financial statistics as net income, total operating expenses, average costs, to name a few.
One approach to manipulating the worksheet and entering data into the worksheet is by entering each command and each piece of data individually through a keyboard. Another commonly used approach is by using a macro which is a programmed series of keystrokes and special commands. A macro is a user generated program which may be invoked by a short sequence of keystrokes and which automatically implements a much longer commonly used sequence of keystrokes. Thus, instead of having to conduct the sometimes involved and often time consuming process of entering a commonly used sequence of keystrokes through the keyboard, a much shorter sequence of keystrokes is used to invoke the macro that enters that long sequence automatically. Thus, the long sequence of keystrokes is reduced to the short sequence of keystrokes that calls the macro.
Whether the user enters commands individually through the keyboard or automatically through a macro, in previously available systems each command communicated directly with the display. This meant that the display was completely updated after each command so that it displayed the worksheet as revised by that command. Thus, in those earlier systems, using a macro to automatically enter a long keystroke sequence often resulted in many revisions to the displayed image occurring over a very short period of time.